Daikokujin

While cleaning my papers I found a notebook relating my japan trip of April 2007.
A lot of time has passed and my students of 2007 are all 15th dan now and live their own lives.

During the year 2006 we had been studying the Shinden fudô ryû, and even though we were now studying the concepts and techniques of the kukishin ryû the concept of Ikken Hassô 一剣八双 (one weapon, all weapons/directions) was totally in harmony with the feeling sensei was teaching.

Ikken Hassô can have different interpretations but what sensei said that night of Friday 13th, April 2007 is interesting.

Here are my notes from what he said during that class:

You have to train all the weapons but not only in the use they were designed for. This is the essence of Ikken Hassô 一剣八双.

Train slowly even if Uke is fast, use small (light) controls.

When uke is down be like a cat playing with a mouse.

You have to train the feeling hidden within the form of the waza and only then you can play, this is the way you should train.

Shingitai Ichi 心技体一 is very important in budô”.

Train the 9 schools but with the principles of the Bujinkan, because the evolution of the bujinkan follows the Bufu Ikkan 武夫一環”.

What is amazing is that Sensei is still saying the same today. The Bujinkan has been created through the study of the nine schools but has become today a path on its own. This is why for example even if we have sword techniques only in the Kukishin ryû and the Togakure ryû*, we can train sword techniques with the feeling of any other ryûha.

Later during the same trip, I went for lunch with him and Nagato sensei and he said: “The fake Shihan like xxx and xxx go by themselves. Anyway I had this statue of Daikokujin made to smash those who are in the way”. He laughed and added “it weighs 6 tons!”.**

Did you know that Daikokujin 大国主神 when written Daikokujin 大扱く塵 could mean “big stripping of impurities”. Maybe the statue is there to clean the bujinkan from those fake practitioners.

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* only these two ryûha have biken densho (private discussion with Sôke in 2013).
**the huge statue outside of sensei’s house in Noda was made in memory of Takamatsu sensei for the 50th anniversary of their encounter in Kobe (1957).